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A CHAPTER ON LOVERS. 



" A CHAPTER on Lovers ! dear me! what a delightful title ! how interest- 

 ing it must be ! and in * The Analyst/ too !" soliloquizes a certain fair 

 friend of ours, blushing into >vomanhood, as her symbol, the rose, is 

 bursting into bloom — "it must be worth reading, I'm sure!" and 

 seating herself quietly, and as she hopes unobservedlj'', in a distant 

 embrasure, she holds back her ringlets with one hand, while 

 a shade of winning seriousness gradually subdues the sunbeam on 

 her face. Of a truth, sweet girl ! I could wish that, for thy sake, 

 my pen were the plume of the dove, dipped in the bright hues of 

 the rainbow, that holding meet correspondence with thy cloudless 

 imaginings, it might discourse to thee most eloquently — most musically, 

 and aye most faithfully of the flowers and the sunshine — the smiles and 

 the witcheries — the tenderness — the devotedness and the constancy of 

 love. Then might I hope to detain thee so long in thine attitude of 

 grace and thine expression of loveliness, that thy sister, that daughter of 

 genius, might steal from thee a revelation of beauty which, embodied 

 on canvass and admired by the multitude, should be, sapiently, deemed 

 fairer than nature. But, alas ! the quill in my fingers is a petty larceny 

 from the pinions of that bird which, by loud and admonitory cacklings, 

 proved the guardian of Rome ; and the crystal into which it dives for 

 the gratification of its bibulous propensities, contains nothing fairer than 

 ink ! N'importe ! the homeliness of the materials may be excused, 

 seeing that thy first billet-doux bore evident traces of *' real Japan'* on a 

 blush-coloured leaf of Dobbs's most felicitous design. And so Kate — 

 my bright and peerless Kate ! thou fair rose in the garden of life ! we 

 may haste to our chapter without additional prelude. 



In commencing a ** chapter'* on *' lovers," -an expectation may glide 

 into the breast of the reader, of being edified by some preliminary 

 observations on ** Love" involving a slight biographical sketch of the 

 divinity, and some '* hitherto unpublished" particulars of his birth, 

 parentage, education (if any), and afterlife ; with a metaphysical 

 analysis of the passion, from fifteen to four-score. Reluctant as I confess 

 myself to disappoint the reader's expectancy, I must, in this instance, 

 curtail its fulfilment. The truth is, so much diflSculty would arise in an 

 attempt to prove which of the Cupids mentioned by Cicero, Hesiod, and 

 Plato — or whether any — now rules over the destinies of man, that in 

 order to avoid controversy, quartos, and questionable invitations to 

 breakfast on bullets, I willingly leave the matter untouched. As to the 

 second point — the metaphysical dissertation on love — I have but to state 

 that having, heedlessly, ventured on such, the paper on which I was 

 indicting my thoughts (*' H)fdrographi&' albeit) blazed up spontaneously, 

 burning with such rapidity, fury, and malignity, as to frizzle off two- 

 thirds of my whiskers, and a petrifying portion of moustache. How 

 this occurred — whether from the hydrogen disengaging itself from the 

 water with which I was writing, and entering into combination with the 

 atmospheric air — or from the friction of my pen, a genuine *' Rhodium," 

 or from the too prodigal use of " words that burn" (my beloved and blue- 

 eyed Seraphina was to peruse the MS.), I am at a loss to determine; 

 but after this explanation it cannot be presumed that I am eager to stand 

 fire in a similar way. There was a song which some vocalist made 

 popular at one period in the usual way, i. e. by a singular affectation of 

 archness exhibited in sundry significant smiles, looks, and contortions 



